War, what is it good for (daddy)?
Sometimes it’s hard for my wife to understand the curious, unintended consequences of choosing to combine her chromosomes with those of this particular specimin of human male. On the one hand, she has this adorable, bright boy who fills her life with joy and wonder. On the other hand, she comes down some mornings to discover that he’s turned off Playhouse Disney so that he can watch the news.
What mother doesn’t love to be greeted in the morning with observations like “Mommy, a truck ran over a bomb, and a bunch of soldiers got killed”?
It may be hard for some to believe, but we do our level best to avoid indoctrination in our household. If our son asks for our opinion, we share it, but if he’s asking for information, he generally gets our best shot at an informational, yet age-appropriate answer. It’s not easy when the topic is, say, the worst POTUS of my lifetime. But it’s more important for him to learn about government than it is to try to create some sort of pint-sized parrot of his old man’s views. Besides, I have more respect for the American system than the current decider-in-chief. That respect (along with virtues like kindness, fairness, honesty) is the real value I want to promote over any specific issue opinions.
Although it is hard, I attempt to be ecumenical in representing the ideas I disagree with. And disparaging remarks are saved for the times when the impressionable youngster is not present. (There are limits, of course. Some things come in by osmosis, and it’s not like he’s ever been taken to a Republican candidate rally.)
It’s not exactly what I think most parents of five year-olds are talking about, but here’s the topic that he opened up with me recently, having seen a brief flash of Hillary Clinton’s face while I was channel-surfing.
Lad: Is she going to be the new president?
Dad: Maybe. There will be an election next year, and she’s one of the top few people who are trying to get elected.
Lad: Well, we need a new president.
Dad: Oh?
Lad: Yeah. The president we have now won’t stop the war. It just keeps going on and on. There needs to be a president who will tell all the soldiers that they can come home.
Dad: There are a lot of people out there who would definitely agree with you.
Lad: Won’t the president use up all the soldiers? What if all the soldiers get used up?
Dad: Well, we’ll still have soldiers. You heard that some soldiers have been killed and lots have been hurt, too. But there are many more soldiers who are still okay. The problem right now is that a lot of them are supposed to come home, but there aren’t enough new soldiers signing up to take their place.
Lad: Why not?
Dad: Only people who want to be soldiers are in the Army. Would you want to sign up if you knew there were going to send you some place dangerous where there was a war going on?
Lad: No way.
Dad: It’s hard to convince people to do something really scary and dangerous like that.
Then we talked a while about families being apart, and how hard it was for mommies and daddies, husbands and wives to be apart from their families for so long.
He made a strange face when he thought about not having his mommy or daddy around for a whole year.
I know for certain that being on the accelerated current events awareness plan would not be my personal first choice. It’s humbling to realize how kids have to go about making sense of the world in the media-drenched age, and how much they rely on us to reassure them and give them a safe place to reflect on what they observe.
Filed under Iraq War, Peace & Conflict, Hillary Clinton, Personal, Parenting, Values | RSS
Daddy D, thank you so much for this story. Often times our society talks about war in the abstract (should we or shouldn’t we, why or why not, etc), but we fail to take a look at the kids who sit next to us and determine what it means to them. Most of the time, they already know what it means.
Keep parenting the right way.
You may want to rethink your discussion point re: military enlistment/re-enlistment rates.
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=9152
I welcome data. But submitting a link to recruiting and retention data from November 2005 is statistical cherry picking. In fact, Army recruiting fell short of targets in May and June of 2007, which are usually the heaviest months for recruitment.
But recruitment isn’t the only issue. The Army has been forced to extend deployments from 12 to 15 months, and the war has gone on long enough that some units have been through several deployments.
Respectfully, it’s always “broken” when the Defense Authorization Act is under consideration. What is broken is the equipment repair and replacement cycle. Gear that was scheduled to be in-service for 8-10 years lasts barely 2.
As for deployments, when I started making deployments in the Navy, they were 9 months. In the mid-seventies, they reduced them to 6 months. But every Sailor knows that, if need be, all deployments are open-ended. When my father fought in Europe in WWII, it was “for the duration of hostilities.”
Ask Marines, soldiers, Sailors and airman who have or are serving in theater if they think the effort to save millions of Iraqis is worth the effort. Look at the retention among those who serve on the front lines.
I, speaking only for myself, don’t want to see a repeat of 1975 to 1978. Once the American people, and more importantly, the Congress abandoned Vietnam, millions died in the killing fields of SE Asia. I realize it’s hard, it takes too long and we mourn for the young warriors lost and their families.
Should we depart Iraq in the near-term, untold millions will die. Iran’s supremacy will be challenged by Suni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Syria will be emboldened to enslave the Lebanese.
I would urge you to read dispatches from the field (Michael Yon) or, if you have the opportunity, speak to a recently returned veteran.
Well, I happen to count among my friends Bryan Lentz. He was in Iraq, I have talked about it with him a couple of times.
I agree that most people who join the service understand the seriousness of their charge, and understand that they may be required to go to extraordinary lengths on behalf of their country. For that, they deserve our gratitude and respect.
The right wing spin of the vast liberal + centrist ubermajority of opinion on Iraq is that we’re all in favor of “cutting and running.” Redeployment as a strategy does not have to be the same as beating the hell out of Saigon. (And let’s not even mention that our military presence is rivaled in size by our civilian contractor/mercenary forces, which I assume would continue on no matter what we do with our soliders and marines.)
I do not want another killing fields, and am happy to debate a humane withdrawl strategy. It’s equally possible that our presence in Iraq to prop up the Shia government may simply result in installing a despotic regime that will engage in ethnic cleansing– and in that sense, the longer we stay to build up their miliatry strength, the more we may be collaborating unwittingly in a future genocide. We’ve already lit the fuse to a powder keg. There’s already a refugee crisis. There are already death squads.
Instead, we have an administration that refuses to even talk about Plan B. It’s a bullshit disrespect to the citizens of this country.
All of this, of course, is way beyond the comprehension of my five year old son, who was the real subject of the post originally.
I have a young son as well and I agree that it’s very difficult to speak with them about a lot of the things they get exposed to regularly. Did you speak to your son about the reason for going to war? Why wars are necessary and why we have had to fight them in the past? We teach our children right from wrong, about honor, and justice on a daily basis. Not only through our words, but also our actions which reflect our beliefs. Our children see conflict daily at school and they learn about how that conflict is resolved. We try to raise them the best we can and we teach them our values, views and beliefs. But at the end of the day, we also have to understand that not everyone shares our views and that sometimes we have to stand up and fight for what we believe in, what we think is right, and for those who cannot fight for themselves.